’ Five minutes?’ the lieutenant thought to himself and picked up his gun. The soldier gathered together watching every direction.
They stood vigilantly, the ground exploded below one of them, sand flew up like a bomb had gone off.
One of the soldiers was sent into the air and a massive creature jumped up reaching towards him.
All the soldiers froze, it opened its large mouth and devoured the soldier in one gulp before diving straight into the sand again.
" Was that a worm?" One of them asked because that looked like a sand worm but as large as a bus.
It was as thick as an average human was tall and they couldn’t even tell how long it was but the part they did see was already more than three metres.
This strange encounter terrified the soldiers, before they could react, the sand beneath another got soft.
Too soft and he started sinking, they rushed to grab him and just before they could, he disappeared as if he had been yanked by something.
His scream echoed below before it disappeared for good, a soldier started shivering and crying.
She leaned closer to the one next to her but nobody could blame her, all of them were terrified out of their boots.
They looked at their lieutenant who had a grim expression. A myriad of thought were running through his mind.
’ Standing here won’t do us any good, we’ll just be picked off one by one, this thing is hunting us but how.
I didn’t see any eyes plus it travels under ground so we can remove sight, scent? No that can’t be it.
Seismic sense, I need to test that.’ the lieutenant organised his thoughts in a split second.
" Stop!" He shouted drawing the attention of his soldiers. " Don’t move a muscle, not even your toe."
They were soldiers who were trained to obey orders, not one of them dared to move after that.
The lieutenant took out a grenade, it wasn’t a real grenade but it was as heavy as one. Its purpose was purely for endurance training.
Other than one loaded gun each, every other gear they were carrying were demos used for training by stimulating real gear they would have to carry in combat.
The lieutenant threw the grenade dozen of metres away. It landed in the desert sand and nothing happened.
Seconds ticked with nothing happening and just as he was about to consider another possibility the ground exploded.
’ As I thought, it senses us through vibrations.’ however realising this didn’t mean there was anything he could do about it.
’ All around us is sand, we can’t outrun it but we can’t stand here forever, we should wait for the reinforcement.’
Unfortunately he had left the radio in his tent and he didn’t dare go there. " It’s vibrations, it can sense us through vibrations.
We should stand still, reinforcement will arrive in five minutes, until then, not one of you should move a muscle."
The soldiers listened, they were all too scared to risk it so they stood as still as statues.
Minutes tickled by and after four minutes they had a helicopter flying towards them and they felt relieved.
The lieutenant signaled the pilot who understood instantly, although he couldn’t understand everything.
He knew the soldiers below couldn’t move, at first he thought landmines but there were no landmines here.
They dropped a ladder and a soldier climbed down. " Stop, don’t touch the ground." The lieutenant warned the soldier.
" It can sense us through vibrations, if you touch the sand we’re all dead." The soldier nodded.
He climbed back up to report the situation back to base and it was concluded they needed a distraction.
Somebody to draw the attention of whatever was lurking below and so another team was called.
It wasn’t long before they were told they were good to go, the soldiers climbed up and more helicopters arrived.
In less than half and hour they were already in the air. " Should we go assist the other team?" The lieutenant asked.
However they were suddenly called back to base immediately. The helicopters flew off back to base.
The lieutenant and his soldiers looked back at the desert thinking about the four soldiers they lost.
A few hours later they came back with trucks, seismic shock bombs and heavy artillery.
Their intentions were to hunt down this thing, they placed the seismic shock bombs on the sand.
Then activated it, it sent vibrations through the sand every three seconds. The lieutenant and his squad had been chosen to join this mission.
They were naturally not alone, the trucks blazed through the sand leaving a trail of dust behind.
They surrounded the seismic shock bombs and waited with heavy machine guns pointed at the centre.
The new soldiers had no idea what they were dealing with and even when they were informed they didn’t fully believe it.
" This is crazy man, so much firepower just for a worm." One soldier complained.
" Quiet, we do what we’re told to do and nothing else, whether it’s crazy or not is for you to decide."
His superior reprimanded him making the soldier shut up. BOOOOOM, the sand suddenly exploded.
The bait had worked just not in the way they had expected. A military truck flew four metres into the air before crashing on the sand.
A massive worm appeared beneath it, before the soldier could react to what’s happening the worm attacked.
It dropped on the fallen soldiers like a falling pillar. Its mouth opened wide revealing rows of razor sharp teeth.
The teeth started spinning around each other like chainsaws and it devoured two men at once.
By the time the others reacted those two soldiers were already dead. " FIRE!" The leader shouted.
Dadadadada, guns blazed and bullets drew red steaks through the air. The parts of the worm exposed above the sand was riddled with bullets.
Much to the shock of the soldiers, the heavy machine guns barely managed to pierce through its think skin.
And the wounds healed rapidly in front of their eyes, this almost made them despair, they watched it dive under the sand.
" What the hell are we dealing with here?" They wondered.